


like blood, like honey

by hotmess_ex_press



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: ??idk but ill tag that just in case, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F, Mutual Pining, Power Dynamics, Rivalry, Unresolved Tension, i rlly wanted to experiment w this kind of dynamic :)), of both the romantic and sexual kind whew, this is a little messy i like it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26337580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmess_ex_press/pseuds/hotmess_ex_press
Summary: Sooyoung is an angel in white, carved from moonlight with blood splattered like lace across her skin. If Joohyun stays, she'll lose herself in the sheen of hair fanning out from Sooyoung's face, ethereal after midnight. If she leaves, Sooyoung will never look at her like this again.There is no room between them for silly, fleeting things likewant, but Joohyun can't get the sweetly taunting trace of Sooyoung's perfume out of her head anyway.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Park Sooyoung | Joy
Comments: 15
Kudos: 52





	like blood, like honey

It's a quick, easy job--honey trap at some glittering party spilling over with vodka and diamonds, cloying with sweet talk and Chanel No. 5. Across the front seat, Sooyoung reeks of the latter, heady scent slipping into the seams of the car's sleek leather seats and clinging to the lapels of Joohyun's suit jacket. Headache building behind her eyes, Joohyun grits her teeth and throws a glance to the passenger's seat.

Her gaze drags up the gleaming curves of Sooyoung's crossed legs and the puckered seam of her black dress, settling on the pomegranate crest of her lips--already twisting into a haughty smirk, a private leer. Gloating just for Joohyun.

From her beaded clutch, Sooyoung pulls her knife out and flicks it open and closed. She repeats the motion, snapping the blade a little quicker each time. The knife glints wickedly in the glow of the approaching hotel.

 _Click. Click. Click._ This is the music of every mission. Joohyun shivers nonetheless.

Sooyoung grips her hand too tightly as she steps out of the glossy car and into the night air, velvet glove crushed to Joohyun's palm. "Remember," Joohyun hisses, dipping her head as she slides the car door closed behind Sooyoung. "No funny business. Just get the drive. In and out."

The brilliance of Sooyoung's responding grin is almost sweet enough to cut through the chilly resentment in her eyes.

Through the endless arched windows, Joohyun catches a glimpse of the assembly. Light filters through millions of dancing crystals, sparkling from a ceiling draped in chandeliers. White-gold spills luxuriously from each pane of glass, flooding the night in a whirling artificial gleam. Sooyoung's skin drinks in the luminescence, and she glows brighter than the moon. Her legs go on forever.

She'll have the shortest dress at the party, the sharpest heels, the slowest smile. Alluring from the shimmer of her lips to the slender twitch of her fingertips.

Joohyun watches her dissolve into the crowd, chest tight.

That cold smile lingers in Joohyun's mind like a tendril of Sooyoung's clove smoke. Rich, impossible to scrub away.

"Joy," she demands into her comm minutes later, neatly tucked into a parking lot three blocks away. " _Joy_. Come in."

Stifling silence melts slowly into low chatter and tinkling laughter. "Here," Sooyoung finally drawls, always too late. Her voice pours like silk from the comm, straight to Joohyun's spine. "Target is approaching. Everything's under control. I'm disconnecting now."

"Don't you dare."

"It's _under control_. I don't need backup."

" _Joy_ \--"

The line goes dead. Joohyun seethes. _One of these days, that girl will learn_.

She tears her earpiece out and throws it against the dashboard.

Now comes the waiting.

She hates this part.

It makes her itch--the inky quiet of the night, the air in the car buzzing with heat and impatience. It didn't used to be like this. She was never the backup, the getaway driver; she was the one to stride back to the car with stolen liquor on her lips and her mission ready to be stripped down into two sentences and a red stamp reading _success_ back at headquarters.

She was their best agent. She was so beautiful, so ruthless, so _lucky_ , until--

As if taunting her and her foolish reminiscing, a sharp spiral of pain explodes in her knee, aftershocks of pain--real or phantom, she can never tell--skittering up and down her right leg. Her hands fly to her thigh, and she screws her eyes shut.

The white-hot lightning finally sizzles from her bones, fading to a pulse just beneath her skin. Joohyun exhales, muscles slowly untensing as she goes limp against the cold relief of the window.

Her eyes peel open with too much effort. She waits.

An hour passes. Along the shadowy edges of the parking lot, moonlight catches on a head of ebony hair. Joohyun starts the car as Sooyoung slithers into her seat.

She's furious. "No funny business, I told you."

The engine purrs, low and sweet. Sooyoung rolls her eyes, tossing Joohyun the flash drive. It's sticky. Pale red stains the dusty rose of her gloves: _cherry juice_ , Joohyun deduces. "I like to finish what I start."

Joohyun can almost see it, a loop of film when she closes her eyes: Sooyoung plucking the maraschino cherry from her cocktail, letting it slip slowly past her lips. The bloodred shine that had immaculately filled Sooyoung's lips just an hour ago is now faded, smeared. Her mouth is like a flower, blooming. The scent of perfume now mingles with others. Liquor, clove smoke, sex. Joohyun lets the flash drive fall into her lap, slams her fist against the steering wheel.

" _Dammit_ , Sooyoung!"

"Don't look at me like that," Sooyoung scoffs. "I can complete my missions however I want. What's it to you if I have a little fun on the job?"

Fingers flexing around the wheel, Joohyun snarls. "That's not what this is about."

"Then what is it about?" Sooyoung's eyes narrow dangerously.

Joohyun glares at the windshield, scowling. How can she put it into words, that for each flicker of anger she feels towards Sooyoung, there's another stirring, lower in her gut? How she's been getting jealous lately, not only of Sooyoung in the field but of her targets as well; how she's been thinking too often of Sooyoung's gloved hands, her full lips, the way it would feel to fall victim to her gleaming canines and swaying saunter. The intoxication of it all.

She's been staying up too late, dwelling on every sour interaction between them, but when she dreams, it's all too sweet. She dreams of Sooyoung's fingertips digging into her, like pearls embedded in her hips. Of raven hair slipping between the creases of her white sheets. Of a soft kiss, pressed to the back of Joohyun's bad knee.

Joohyun can't say it, can't even admit it to herself. At her silence, Sooyoung laughs bitterly.

"You have your flash drive. Just like they asked. Now drive."

No one had thought to tell her that her partner was dead until after she woke up, after her skin grafts were deemed successful and her scars cleaned up to reveal angry jagged lines across her once-perfect legs, after her bones painfully and slowly knit back together, after she learned to walk again and was sitting in Control, suit neatly pressed and ready for her next assignment.

"Don't worry," Seulgi reassured. "We've found you the perfect partner."

"Junmyeon was the perfect partner," Joohyun snapped. It had been months since their last, disastrous mission. Everyone would have been done grieving. Joohyun wasn't one for mourning, but they worked well together. Seulgi kept talking.

"Fresh from training, but very skilled. Good at intel, just like you were. You'll work well together."

Joohyun winced at the _were_ , and snatched her new partner's file from Seulgi's hands. Tragically empty. On top of everything, now she'd be stuck steering a rookie in and out of assignments.

Sighing, Joohyun flipped through the file. _Park Sooyoung_ , in-field alias Joy. A headshot of a pretty-looking girl with dark hair. A short list of skills. Joohyun's gaze settled on the summary at the bottom of the paperwork, dissatisfaction surging through her chest.

_Strengths: Quick-Witted, Resourceful, Independent_

_Weaknesses: Impulsive, Indulgent, Disloyal_

"She specializes in seduction," Seulgi notes. "Just like you."

"Wrong." Joohyun slammed the file onto the desk without closing it, head already throbbing. "She is _nothing_ like me."

When Control calls her with a new mission, Joohyun doesn't answer until the last ring. They drone on about the task as she blows the dust from the rim of a wine glass and dims the lights. The slipper sconces on either side of the hall cast twin shadows behind her as she makes her way to her room.

"Seems like an easy job," she interrupts. Her bedroom door seals the warm pool of light in the hallway as she lets it fall closed. Thin curtains tremble, cool breeze from the open balcony doors dancing around the delicate fabric. Her lips curl into a humorless smile. "Sooyoung can handle it."

The assistant manning Control sputters. "But--"

Joohyun's smile hardens. "She doesn't _need_ backup."

The phone rings again, hours later. Joohyun pours another half glass of wine before picking up.

"You bitch," Sooyoung spits.

"Hello, Joy." Joohyun swills the wine around her glass, watching it lap up the sides. Red. Deep like blood, and slick like Sooyoung's ruby-polished lips. "How is the mission?"

"You can call me Sooyoung, because the mission is complete." Her voice boils with anger, but quivers with something a little more desperate. It settles in Joohyun's chest, guttural and satisfying. "Not without me getting my ass kicked."

Red wine spills over her lower lip and touches the velvet underside of her tongue. It runs dark and fragrant over her palm as she wipes it from her chin. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Where were you?" Sooyoung demands, bordering on a beg.

Eyes closed, Joohyun grips the stem of her glass and thinks about the plush decadence of Sooyoung's lips. Just as intoxicating as wine, but how much more lush, how much sweeter? "You need me, Sooyoung."

There's a scathing laugh. "You're so cruel."

A breath of wind lifts strands of hair from the back of Joohyun's neck. She shivers. Sooyoung's breath on the other line is muted, and an apology flickers at the tip of Joohyun's tongue, that aching part of her longing to slip into something more tender, infinitely less abrasive. It could be good between them, could be pretty and lenient. But Sooyoung shifts, and Joohyun snaps back into place, apology melting away, down her throat and back into her throat, freezing over once more. Sooyoung exhales into the silence.

"Forget it. Just... fuck you, Joohyun."

Joohyun downs the rest of her wine. "See you next assignment."

Joohyun will never forget the way Sooyoung looks in her long white dress with the slit, arms traced in blood and black hair flowing, like an angel.

"It got out of control," Sooyoung mutters. "He knew--I didn't know what to do."

 _Always be gentle_ , Junmyeon had told her years ago, _not everyone carries their first kill as well as you do_.

Joohyun dims the lights, and in the darkness Sooyoung lifts her gaze from the blood on her skin to Joohyun's face. Her eyes are wild and forlorn, searching for comfort, drowning in the moonlight she usually wears so well. She is jarringly small, gripping the edge of the pristine bed, anchored to nothing in the middle of the room.

"It's alright," Joohyun finally whispers, crossing the distance between them and sinking to her knees. She touches Sooyoung's bare knee, just shy of reverent. "You did what you had to."

Sooyoung's hands flutter towards her, and Joohyun catches them, pulling them tight to her chest. Her throat is thick with the vulnerability of it all.

"It's alright," she repeats, and Sooyoung's head falls forward, hair slipping from her trembling shoulders to curtain her face.

"I'm sorry," she breathes. Joohyun smiles indulgently, and light snags in Sooyoung's eyes.

With uncommon gentleness, she raises Sooyoung's hands, brushing her lips over the knuckles before tugging each ring off. She carefully pulls the black gloves from Sooyoung's arms, letting them pool to the floor. Sooyoung's hands are pale, soft as lilies in their bareness. Joohyun dabs all the blood from Sooyoung's skin with the cuffs of her silk shirt, and cups her ankles while she unties the straps of her heels.

She stands, kicking the shoes away. Sooyoung follows her movement, head tipping back. Joohyun reaches to brush her hair away, strands soft and elusive, rippling between her fingers.

"Sleep," she orders, pushing Sooyoung back onto the bed.

Sooyoung clasps her wrist before she can draw away. Even in the darkness, her lips burn crimson. "Joohyun..."

"Don't," Joohyun sighs. She glances away from Sooyoung, grateful and scared and spread like a dream on the white duvet of a cold hotel bed. That perfect dress gapes around her leg, tantalizing stretch of starlit skin, poised to hook around Joohyun's knee and draw her in forever. If Joohyun stays, she'll lose herself in the sheen of hair fanning out from Sooyoung's face, ethereal after midnight. If she leaves, Sooyoung will never look at her like this again.

The woman in front of her edges too close to the Sooyoung of her dreams.

They have a job to do, no matter how tempting the cut of Sooyoung's throat is. They're partners, the newly lethal temptress and the ruthless spy. No room for silly, fleeting things like _want_.

This Sooyoung, uncertain with longing and glistening with unspoken words, a vision in white, is only that: a dream.

Joohyun turns. Sooyoung's hold on her wrist slides away.

"You don't have to go."

In the morning, her eyes will be ice again.

"Sleep, Sooyoung."

When Joohyun reaches headquarters the next day, Sooyoung is already there, her maroon nails tapping slowly against the glass desk. Her hips cut a sharp, crisp line in her dark pencil skirt.

Seulgi reappears behind the desk, passing Sooyoung a bundle of paperwork. Sooyoung leans close as she thanks her, tone like honey, lips of flame and sugar.

As she leaves, she glares over her shoulder at Joohyun. Her perfume lingers in the air, subtle, smoky, taunting.

"I see things are the same as ever between you two," Seulgi laughs as Joohyun steps up to the desk. Joohyun smiles wryly. Her veins thrum with venom where Sooyoung had touched her so sweetly, just hours before.

"It seems so."

Cool blue lights illuminate the underground room like pulsing drops of sapphire, strung across the ceiling in a wave of artificial stars. Control does this every year on the eve of the company's founding date: a dim, smoky party for their favorite agents and nimblest hackers, prized handlers and indispensable dealers. The invitations are bestowed in the form of electric blue pills, time and place appearing in a cloud of shimmering cobalt when dropped into hot water.

Joohyun has been attending since her first job; Sooyoung, after two months of working with her.

She's only caught glimpses of Sooyoung through the billowing haze, the lights tracing her shoulder blades and canines in ethereal azure and exploding in fractals of ice from the diamonds at her throat. She swears she can smell the thick smoke of Sooyoung's cloves every time she turns her head, keeps seeing traces of red lipstick in every ashtray she passes.

The smoke is thickest in the center of the room, so Joohyun drifts along the edges of the party. A keyboardist and saxophonist in silk masks play soft and sultry in the corner.

Conversation isn't lacking, and there's always a flute of champagne chilling her fingertips. She's still Irene, _the_ Irene, and that commands respect, garners adoration.

Champagne raised to her lips, she smiles primly, but her gaze keeps flickering over the party.

The smoke and music and click of shoes has started to solidify, pounding behind her temples. Joohyun excuses herself from a small group of handlers and finds herself in front of the bar, hand shaking as she downs champagne. A crystalline drop spills from the corner of her mouth.

Sweat beginning to pierce her forehead, she curses herself for wearing such spindly heels. Her knee blossoms with discomfort, threatening to buckle.

She almost cries out when she takes a step, pain coiling deep in her bones. The blue lights blur, dilate, smear across the assembly.

In the middle of the room, Sooyoung glances her way. Their eyes meet, and for a moment Joohyun can see her in all her midnight-tinged glory, the glitter dotting her inner eyes, the champagne flute in one hand and lit smoke hovering by her slick grin in the other. Tendrils of white curl around her parted lips before Joohyun's vision swells again, and she turns away, barely managing to keep the limp from her walk.

The lights in the bathroom are warm and bright, bleeding through her retinas. She collapses against the wall, dizzy. The coolness of the bathroom floor seeps in through the thin satin of her dress.

She exhales; it comes out wavering.

The door opens and closes gently, Sooyoung slipping in between dazed blinks. Her scent cuts through the eerie blankness of the bathroom, rich as comfort.

"Joohyun," she whispers, kneeling. She levels Joohyun's gaze to hers with a finger curled beneath her chin. "Joohyun?"

Joohyun's brow creases. Sooyoung pulls her hand away, settling back on the tiles.

Joohyun doesn't expect the careful touch on her ankle, undoing the clasps of her shoes. Sooyoung tosses them to the side, pulling Joohyun's foot into her lap. She starts with the arch of Joohyun's right foot, rubbing slowly, thumbs pressing into the aching muscles. Joohyun hisses when she reaches mid-calf.

"Tell me if I hurt you," Sooyoung insists, easing pressure to brush looping patterns over Joohyun's skin. "Tell me."

"I will," Joohyun murmurs, eyes slipping closed. "Don't stop."

Sooyoung is so warm, and she's melting like honey, drunk and pliant beneath Sooyoung's slow, patient hands. Her breath catches when Sooyoung slides her dress over her knee, rolling the sleek fabric along her skin, satin pooling mid-thigh. Joohyun shivers at the kiss of cold air. Massaging higher, Sooyoung lingers over the tender flesh of her thigh, fingertips light as they skim along the underside of Joohyun's leg. Echoes of her touch burn like bee stings, sweeten like rosebuds.

Sooyoung's features ripple with something too much like softness when Joohyun opens her eyes. "Better?" she asks quietly. She's heartbreakingly close, Joohyun's leg slung over her lap, palm absentmindedly smoothing back and forth under Joohyun's knee.

Joohyun smiles, feels it crumble around the middle. Lowers her eyelids, because it's easiest to indulge in the dark. "Thank you."

Bottom lip pressed between her teeth, Sooyoung slips her arms under Joohyun's knees and across her shoulders; a soft grunt escapes her as she stands, wobbling a little with their combined weight. Joohyun grips her shoulder, nails pricking Sooyoung's silk skin. She's weak all over, bones devoured by fatigue and Sooyoung's subtle warmth. Lulled in Sooyoung's arms, she doesn't let go until Sooyoung is prying the taxi door open.

Sooyoung's throat ripples as she eases Joohyun into the backseat. Joohyun catches the movement, the wretched thrum of it. Their thighs brush every time the car rumbles over a bump in the road. Sooyoung's skin is moon-white, and her diamonds and silver wink at Joohyun, reflected in the glossy inside of the car windows. Everywhere she looks, a teasing flash of Sooyoung.

When they reach Joohyun's apartment, Sooyoung walks her to her door, arm curled around her waist and Joohyun's silver heels dangling from her fingertips. Her hand grazes Joohyun's hip as the key turns in the lock.

Joohyun steps into her entryway, and Sooyoung's hand falls away. The door is open just wide enough for Sooyoung to slip in after her.

Joohyun nudges it, letting fall closed a little further before catching it, turning to lean against the doorframe.

"You didn't have to," she says. Her pinky brushes over Sooyoung's knuckles as she reaches for her shoes.

Sooyoung takes a half-step back, clasping her hands behind her back. Something ugly and longing flickers in her eyes before ice crawls over her features again, masking her in that doll-like smile.

"Consider us even," she responds, cold and beautiful. Her voice is more carefully blank than usual.

Sooyoung's perfume clings to the front of her dress when Joohyun wakes up.

She peels it off, throws it in the bathroom sink, but the scent still itches across her chest. Her blood bubbles with anger, the only emotion she'll let herself name. Her rage. Her _Sooyoung. Sooyoung. Sooyoung._

"I have time," Sooyoung's voice crackles over the comm. "I could get into his office, bring those files back to Control."

Joohyun's eyes dart towards the dashboard, where a glowing clock drips seconds in electric green. _Five minutes, twenty-three seconds_. She bares her teeth to the darkness. "No, Joy. You already have the evidence. We don't need the files."

"I can make it."

"Get back to the car, now."

Sooyoung is quiet. It takes three seconds for Joohyun to realize she's turned her comm off, again.

Cursing, Joohyun slams her curled fist into the passenger seat.

Time slithers on. Joohyun tries fruitlessly to contact Sooyoung's comm, meeting smothering silence each time.

Two minutes left on the timer. She straps her gun to her thigh and slips out of the car, slinking to the mouth of the alley just in time to see Sooyoung spilling from the window of the office across the street, pitching forward into a neat tumble and springing to her feet already running. She darts across the street, hair streaming behind her.

The office explodes in a scream of sirens and flashing red lights, just as Sooyoung flings herself into the shadows of the alley. Angry vermilion storms the night, bitter and oversaturated. Joohyun slams Sooyoung into the brick wall of the alley.

"What were you thinking?" she shrieks, blood pounding in her ears and straining against her skin. Sooyoung tries to find her footing but Joohyun grabs her by the shoulder of her thin jacket, shoving her back again. The air leaves Sooyoung in an involuntary heave, and her nails tease blood from Joohyun's veins when she reaches to scrabble at her wrist. "What were you _thinking_?"

"I had time," she gasps, sinking down the wall. Her feet slip, Joohyun's vice grip on her shoulder the only thing keeping her upright. Joohyun's pulse hammers in time to the frantic beat of the alarm.

She hisses, fingers digging into the base of Sooyoung's neck. "Only you _didn't_."

Sooyoung groans, throat exposed as she struggles to rise. "You're so unfair," she whimpers.

"Pray tell," Joohyun grits, "exactly _how_ I'm being unfair."

"You're _Irene_ ," Sooyoung's voice pitches up. "All I want is to impress you. All I wanted was for you to respect me."

Everything is red, red, red, like bloodlust spilling over, like mercury in her eyes.

"Respect," Joohyun repeats, tone dripping poison down the front of Sooyoung's jacket. "Is that _all_ you wanted?"

Hurt and fury well up in Sooyoung's eyes, a wretched cry dribbling from her lips. Her foot jerks up, pointed toe of her boot thrust into Joohyun's bad knee. Joohyun hears the crunch before she feels it; she gasps, crumpling when the wave of pain crashes over her. Sooyoung slides the rest of the way down the wall, falling to her hands and knees.

Angel. She's an angel, her face cast in shadows, red light a crown, a halo of flame in her dark hair. Her eyes are exquisite, smoldering with tears that glint like viscous blood. She chokes on air and tears and words: settles on just one.

" _Cruel_."

Shouting is coming from across the street, footsteps thundering closer.

Joohyun exhales through the pain. The car is at the other end of the alley, neon lights throbbing deep in the negatives. They're out of time, so far out of time.

"Get out of here," she demands, refusing to meet Sooyoung's frenzied gaze. "Take your damn files."

"Joohyun--"

" _Now_."

This time, Sooyoung obeys. Joohyun closes her eyes as Sooyoung retreats, screech of the car tires echoing on and on as the footsteps near the mouth of the alley. She shrinks further into the shadows, leg dragging along the jagged concrete.

Her palm curves around her gun, familiar in her hands. The lightning beam of a flashlight swivels just feet above her head as she dials Control.

"Agent Irene. Location disclosed. Requesting backup, immediately."

Once again, Joohyun finds herself in a hard bed back at headquarters, white curtains lowered like a box around her. Her gun is still hot in her hands. Blood seeping through her shirt where steel bit at her flesh, she thinks of Sooyoung and lets herself seethe, lets herself sleep.

Sooyoung walks softly when she visits. Hair pulled into a somber bun and strap of her slip falling from her shoulder to graze her bicep, her skin shimmers like opal under the harsh lights. Bruises sink their purple teeth into her shoulders and neck, strewn like dying stars where Joohyun had grasped her. Too tight, too cruel.

She brings a single rose, trimmed close to the bud. Pinched between her fingers like a smoke, she offers it to Joohyun, face angled to the floor.

Joohyun takes it delicately, lips brushing the bloom's plumpest point before letting it tumble to her lap. It's violently dark, sensuous against the crisp white. Sooyoung kneels slowly, gripping the edge of the folded sheet.

"I would have stayed," she whispers, eyes glittering with regret. "If you asked me to."

 _I don't believe you_ , Joohyun would say, in a world where she spoke her mind. _You would stay until staying got hard. You would stay while I fight, but while I bleed? When I cry? When I tell you I need you?_

She sighs, letting her head tilt back against the pillows, and drinks in the sight of Sooyoung. A diamond is caught on her eyelashes, dissolving when she blinks.

"Well," Joohyun finally replies, keeping her voice low and light. "We all have our faults."

Sooyoung stays quiet. She is gorgeous, mouth blazing hot and crimson but icy everywhere else. And Joohyun would never let her stay in the first place.

She tears her gaze from Sooyoung, staring up at the ceiling. She's drowning in perfume, rose petals collapsing under her fingernails, and she wants to be alone.

"I'll see you next assignment, Sooyoung."

**Author's Note:**

> joohyun's file--  
> strengths: levelheaded, precise, ruthless  
> weaknesses: unwilling to improvise, unfeeling, violent
> 
> hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are love <3  
> 


End file.
